Eating Out
by A-blackwinged-bird
Summary: A lack of funds has the boys in a bind at lunchtime. Oneshot.


**Title**: Eating Out

**Author**: Black Wingedbird

Minor Language, no spoilers, standard dis

**Author's Notes**: This was all me- all mistakes are mine. I hope you have as much fun reading as I did writing.

* * *

"I am _so_ starving," Dean said, glancing at Sam. "I could eat a whole cow."

Sam looked up. His phone was in his lap and he'd been pushing buttons for five minutes now, oblivious. "What?"

"What the hell are you doing?"

Sam put the phone in his jacket pocket. "Nothing. Can we stop for lunch now? I'm starving."

Dean raised an eyebrow put didn't push it. Sam was a nerd, that was just a fact of life. He turned his attention back to the highway as they passed a large green sign entitled 'Food'. "I'm so glad you pay attention," he grumbled, glancing at the side mirror before easing the car onto the exit ramp. "What do you feel like?"

"Anything."

"At least you're easy to please."

Ten minutes later they were settling into a booth at a locally-owned diner. The mid-day crowd was thick and the air was heavy with the scent of beef and grease. Conversation swirled around them as Dean picked up his plastic-coated menu.

The waitress returned with two glasses of water and nudged one in front of each brother. "Have you guys decided on what you want?"

Sam opened his mouth and Dean blurted, "I want a cheeseburger, the biggest one you got. Medium-rare."

Sam glared at him as he handed the menu to the waitress. "Same here, please."

The waitress took the menus and raised an eyebrow. "The biggest burger we have, huh?"

Dean stopped smirking at Sam to look up at her. She was grinning at them like she knew a secret, like he had a booger hanging out of his nose or something. "Uh… yeah. We're… really hungry."

She smiled and tucked the menus under her arm. "Okay, two Big Burgers coming right up."

Dean watched her saunter to the kitchen pass-through and lean in close to one of the cooks, grinning as she talked into his ear. The chef looked at their table and grinned. Suspicion snaked down Dean's spine, raising the hair on the back of his neck. Why did it feel as if he had just ordered his own demise?

"Stop oogling the waitress and pay attention," Sam snapped, his eyes hard and dilated in the dim lighting. "We have a problem here."

Dean took a deep breath, trying to shake the feeling of impending doom. "What?"

"I don't have any cash."

"Neither do I. We'll use a credit card."

"I threw them away, remember?"

"What? Why?"

"Because when I tried to pay for the gas last week it was declined and I probably would have been arrested if I hadn't found some cash in my coat pocket."

"Come on. Arrested?"

"Gas was three dollars a gallon! There's a surveillance camera at every pump now!" Sam was glaring at him, his face flushed. "I told you this last week, Dean. You were supposed to apply for new cards. I thought that's why we stopped at the P.O. Box."

Dean shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck. "I had some, uh… stuff to pick up."

"Like what?"

Dean squirmed. "You know, paperwork. Stuff."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "Paperwork?"

Dean grabbed his water and downed half the glass.

"What- shit. I don't believe this. You're telling me we drove 200 miles out of the way so that you could get your issue of Hustler Hardcore? You have _got_ to be kidding me."

"Fuck off," Dean growled, picking at a scratch in the table's polish. "It's important."

Sam laughed, that annoying, goody-freaking-two-shoes laugh that made it sound like he was better than Dean. "Important. Right."

Just as Dean was about to launch himself over the table and kick the royal shit out of his annoying little brother, the waitress appeared, her petite bicep bulging with strain under the weight of a very large platter. "Here you go, guys," she said, her voice tight as she struggled to lower a massive burger to the table without dropping it. "Two Big Burgers."

Dean stared open-jawed at the burger before him. It was bigger than his head. Bigger than _Sam's_ head. When he said he wanted a whole cow, he had just been kidding. "Uh…" He looked up at Sam, who looked absolutely dumbstruck.

The waitress grinned, huffing slightly from her work-out. "Six pounds of the best burger in these parts," she declared.

"Six…" Dean trailed off, staring at the two inch-thick patty of ground beef. The burger was as large around as the dinner plate it sat on and at least five inches high. "I think I may need a doggie bag."

The waitress rested one hand on her hip and the other on the red pleather behind Sam's shoulder. "Come on, I thought you boys said you were hungry? You can't chicken out now, those are the rules."

"Rules?"

She rolled her eyes and pointed to a display on the wall. "You got two hours. Finish it all, and it's free." She smiled at them, the same know-it-all smile from before. "Good luck, boys," she said, then pranced away.

Dean stared at the photographs of men and women, most of them looking like they were about to hurl. Only one man was smiling, holding up an empty plate. The photo was dated five years ago.

He looked at Sam. "Well, we just found the answer to our problem."

Sam already looked like he was going to be sick. "I'd rather wash dishes," he murmured.

Dean took a deep breath, pulling the plate closer. "Come on, Sammy. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I think you need to look up the word 'adventure'."

"It'll be fun. I'll race you."

"No."

"Winner gets first shower for a week."

"A month."

"Two weeks."

"Three weeks, and winner picks the music."

Dean clenched his jaw, imaging the next three weeks listening to weak-ass pop princess music and bathing in cold water. He eyed the burger. He could do it. As long as it was physically was possible, he could do it. "You're on, stick-boy."

Dean wrapped his fingers around the bread and hoisted it into the air. He'd held decapitated heads that weren't as heavy as this. Cheese and ketchup and mustard dripped over the glistening meat while onions and tomatoes and lettuce lay stacked under the top bun. A pickle spear was nestled amongst the handful of fries on his plate which sorta pissed him off, because he hated pickle-flavored fries.

But somehow, he didn't expect that to be an issue today.

He glanced at the kitchen, not surprised to find a couple of the cooks watching intently. He looked to Sam, took a deep breath, then unhinged his jaw and took a bite.

He chewed, watching Sam take a bite as well. "It's pretty good," Dean noted with a nod. He took another bite. "Pretty damn good."

Sam agreed, nodding with enthusiasm. "This might not be so hard after all."

o0O0o

"This," Sam said slowly, his mouth pulled down in a sick grin, "is impossible."

Dean took a deep breath, eyeing the last quarter of his burger. "Yeah, totally."

"I'm going to vomit."

"You vomit and I win."

"What if I die?"

"I still win."

Sam swallowed thickly, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I don't want to eat anymore."

Dean took another bite, chewing the cold meat slowly, biding time as his stomach made room for more. "Me neither."

Sam took another bite too, chewing with his mouth open in a way Dean hadn't seen since he was ten.

His stomach was literally bursting. The burger was backing up into his esophagus. He could feel the grease leaching into his veins. It hurt to chew, it hurt to sit here, it hurt to breathe. God save them if the demon showed up now. Dean couldn't move.

But by God, he was determined to finish.

"Come on, Sammy… it's just a cheeseburger. What happened to being starved?"

They both took another bite.

"I'm never going to eat another cheeseburger as long as I live."

"Just as long as you finish this one. Although it would be pretty funny seeing you in one of those waitress uniforms."

They took another bite.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You probably have a subscription to Hustlers Triple-X Waitresses or something."

"They make a magazine like that?"

They took another bite.

"I have no idea. There's some crazy shit out there."

"You're telling me."

They took another bite.

"This, for instance. This is crazy, you know that? I read once where you can actually die from over-eating."

"Yet here you are."

They took another bite.

"Fifty dollars says tomorrow we have heart attacks and die."

"Dude, if you have fifty dollars, we wouldn't be doing this."

They took another bite.

"People are staring."

"I don't care. I'm winning."

And he was. The last few bites seemed to illuminate, glowing with the promise of an opportunity to gloat. Heavenly music played. Everything else faded away.

He didn't know how he did it, but the next thing he knew, Dean's plate was empty and his mouth was full of burger remains. He slammed his palm on the table and raised his other fist in the air. "I win."

Sam shoved the last bite in his mouth and glared as Dean was surrounded by restaurant employees.

"Unbelievable," the chef gawked, staring at Dean's empty plate. "No one has eaten the entire thing since Dirks McGuire back in '01. And you still got five minutes to spare!"

Dean grinned despite his surprise at the lapse of time. They'd really been sitting here for two hours? He leaned back, pushing his plate away. "Well thanks for the lunch, fellas. Great burger. We'll be sure to stop here again."

Sam's eyes grew large and round as if he had just been sentenced to death.

Dean slid out of the booth and stretched, feeling the lump in his stomach shift. He put his hands on his hips and cracked his spine, then laid a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Come on, chubs. Let's find a place to crash. I don't think I can stay awake much longer."

Sam used the table to push himself to his feet. He stood still for a moment, swaying, his face pale. He looked at Dean. "We need to leave now."

They were in the car and pulling out of the parking lot when Dean grew uncomfortable with Sam's silence. He glanced to Sam's corner of the car, quickly identifying the tense posture. "You okay there, Sammy?"

Sam shook his head, looking absolutely miserable.

"No? You need a Tums or something?"

The Impala's front right tire bounced through a pothole and Sam _gurgled_ and turned green. "Pull over now."

"Shit."

Dean slammed on the brakes and stopped the car on the shoulder just as Sam threw open the door and vomited loudly. Dean looked sympathetically at his brother's curved spine, watched as Sam's shoulders heaved and his head hung low. Dean's own stomach did a little flip-flop at the sound of half-digested cheeseburger plopping onto the gravel.

When Sam finally straightened and leaned against the seat, still facing away from Dean, he grinned. "Dude, you are such a chick. A chick who has to take cold showers and listen to Zeppelin for the next three weeks."

Sam glared at him over his shoulder. "Next time… _I'm_ handling the credit cards."

END


End file.
